Battered...but still unbowed: Survivors of the great post office purge, and the closure fight even a Rocky star couldn't win

It was one of Financial Mail’s most powerful campaigns – to save Britain’s cherished post offices. With the support of hundreds of thousands of our readers, we fought against waves of planned closures and cuts.

Travelling around Britain, we demonstrated time and again how post offices lay at the heart of communities, providing vital services and helping ordinary people manage their finances.

Despite our campaigning, thousands of post offices were closed for good. But there were notable victories. And
the fact the Government has kept ownership of the remaining network and
pledged to stop the cuts is in part due to our readers.

Incredibly,
a decade has passed since the battle began, so last week Financial Mail
went back to several communities whose post offices were on the front
line.

SAVED: Chobham, Saved Surrey

A symbol of fierce opposition against closures was 84-year-old Second World War veteran Pat Handley. Standing
ramrod straight, he spurned a wheelchair to join a 1,000-strong march
on Downing Street to fight for his post office in Chobham, Surrey, in
2006.

Ten years of battle

2002: Financial Mail launches Save Our Post Office campaign. There were 19,000 branches, down from 25,000 at the all-time peak in 1965.

2003: Benefits books are scrapped in favour of the Post Office card account. The £1billion programme slashed post office revenue by up to 40 per cent, forcing many branches out of business.

2006: Post offices lose the right to sell TV licences to private firm PayPoint. Postage stamps can now also be bought and printed online. Financial Mail takes another 10,000 signatures in support of our campaign to Downing Street.

2007: Eighty-five Crown offices run directly by Royal Mail axed from 500-strong Crown network or sold to shops such as WHSmith.

2007: Another closure plan targets 2,500 branches over two years. Against huge protests most are axed following a six-week ‘consultation programme’, widely criticised as a sham.

2012: Government makes £1.34billion survival pledge to 6,000 branches for 11,500-strong network until 2015, but payments to branches will get cut.

Pat wore his
28th Squadron blazer and on his chest was a host of medals and badges,
including one proudly worn for our Save Our Post Office campaign. He
died several years later, but his fighting spirit helped inspire a rare
victory.

Mina Mehta
took over the running of the post office in 2006. ‘Pat was a wonderful
character,’ she says. ‘His dogged determination backed by others made us
realise that we really could succeed.’

But
she adds: ‘The only way we can survive is if our customers keep coming.
We encourage visitors to use our bank facilities as surrounding banks
have closed.’

GONE: Latheron, Caithness

FINANCIAL Mail visited Lorna Gunn’s remote post office in Latheron, Caithness, 40 miles south of John O’Groats, in 2003.

Lorna
was continuing a proud heritage started by grandfather Alexander who
opened a branch in 1865. Her father Angus took over in 1903 and ran a
post office until 1960, when Lorna took the helm.

Her
post office was like a Victorian parlour, complete with a welcoming
fire for customers. When we interviewed her, Lorna was steadfast in her
commitment to continue serving the community.

She loved the post office and would never close it, she said.

But
five years later, in 2008, she was given no choice. Post Office bosses
decided the branch must go as part of a massive forced closure programme
that hit vulnerable, isolated communities hard.

Today,
retired and in her 80s, Lorna says: ‘It was deeply upsetting. I feel
sad because I think of the loss to our community – it was all we had.
The post office had also been my life.’

Her service to the community, recognised with an MBE and a Best Post Office in the Highlands award, counted for nothing.

‘I
will not criticise the Post Office,’ she says. ‘My only concern is that
now we have no branch here we are easy to forget. Once closed, a post
office does not come back.’

A
Post Office van visits for an hour four times a week as a lifeline for
the most vulnerable in the village, but Lorna says that a vital part of
life in Latheron has died.

GONE: Kensington, west London

How
could officials close a thriving post office in well-heeled Kensington,
west London, with local celebrities, including Anne Robinson, on the
warpath?

Objections
from the Weakest Link presenter, who lived 400 yards away – plus a
letter of complaint by action hero Dolph Lundgren who appeared in Rocky
IV – failed to save the branch after we visited in 2004. At the time,
Robinson said: ‘Our post office is part of the community. It is the glue
that binds us together.’

Almost
a decade later and the property is a wreck. Workmen can be heard
drilling behind a boarded screen and a hole in the roof shows all that
is left is an empty shell. The branch was on the market for
£3.15 million in 2008. It is now being turned into a luxury private home
and is expected to be worth several times that sum when complete.

The
loss of the post office has proved a huge blow to local businesses as
well as the community. Tara Tajalli, 60, who runs the Select Boutique
opposite the building site, says: ‘It was here 135 years. All that
history – boom! Gone.

‘Business has been hit hard. Customers who would pop in after the post office no longer pass this way.’

SAVED: Trafalgar Square

When
Financial Mail visited the Crown post office branch near Trafalgar
Square in 2004, it was a shabby disgrace. It had already been shrunk in
2001 when bosses sold off floor space to a coffee shop.

This proved a devastating blow for business as tourists and passers-by could no longer see the branch from the square.

In 2004 there was talk of closure. Indeed, it looked appalling, with grubby floor tiles, broken lights and a gloomy interior.

More...

Perhaps
Financial Mail’s highlighting of its plight played a part in what
happened to the branch over the coming years. A complete refit has
turned it into a welcoming place, busy with tourists and locals alike.

Red
leather sofas welcome customers who sit and wait to be called rather
than queue. The 16 counters are almost all manned and there are four
machines to handle postal needs if you do not require the personal
touch.

Italian visitors
Mila Dapporto, 30, and Silvia Contessa, 26, are impressed. Mila says:
‘It is so clean and fresh – not at all what you might expect from a post
office. The instant service is fantastic.’

Physiotherapy student Kremena Rizova, 23, says: ‘There is a staff efficiency here that is much better than in older branches.’

GONE: Maesbury Marsh, Shropshire

Deep
in rural Shropshire, a new post office on the edge of Maesbury Marsh
opened in 2006. It was to be a model for the future – a fresh and airy
branch offering postal services as well as coffee and groceries.

Three
years later the dream was dead. Frustrated by a lack of Post Office
support and tangled in red tape, owners Fiona MacDonald, 42, and Iain
Campbell, 51, cut their ties.

Fiona
says: ‘We got no support from the Post Office, just paperwork and
health and safety checks. We were paid £150 a month for five hours of
work a week and it was impractical to run as a business.’

The
couple focused more on the shop, opening a book section and a miniature
steam railway line on eight acres of surrounding land. They have also
teamed up with other local businesses offering mountain bike hire and a
horse-drawn canal boat service. Business is thriving.

Fiona
adds: ‘We are not bitter, but disappointed. The so-called support from
the Post Office was a recorded message on the end of a phone. The only
visit was to check disability access that we already had.’

SAVED: Sandown, Isle of Wight

Rodney Archer was so incensed by proposals for branch closures on the Isle of Wight that he called for the island to declare independence.

Rodney,
72, was secretary of the island’s branch of the National Federation of
SubPostmasters. He accused the Government of ‘wanton vandalism’ for
threatening the network and said closures would be greater than first
announced. His fears were justified.

Since
2006, when we visited him, 20 of the island’s 52 branches have closed.
Rodney is still running the former Crown branch in Sandown, but he has
doubts about the overall management of the network.

He
says: ‘I applaud a modernisation programme to save 6,000 branches by
turning them into locals or main offices, but what do the remaining
5,500 do?

‘There must be a survival plan for those left out on a limb.’

Revamp promises shorter queues, longer hours

About 6,000 branches, almost half the
network, are to get extra money to revitalise interiors with modern
fittings, better lighting and counters. The investments will take place
over the next three years.

About 4,000 of these revamped branches will stay as ‘main’ post offices
with an incentive of up to £45,000 to spend on improvements.

Counters for post office needs will be separate from any shop that
might be part of the building. The remainders will be ‘locals’ where a
post office gets up to £10,000 to improve the interior but the counter
is shared for all trading within the shop.

Customers benefit from longer opening hours stretched to fit in with the
existing shop opening hours. On the downside, local branches will offer
reduced services.

The entire network of 11,500 branches is also to get a ‘tap and go’
payment system – contactless card technology – to cut queues. It will be
installed this year.

A Post Office spokesman says: ‘We have made a commitment to no further closure programmes.

‘If a branch closes for reasons beyond our control, such as a subpostmaster retiring, we will work with the local communities to
ensure that services are maintained in the area.’

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Battered...but still unbowed: Survivors of the great post office purge, and the closure fight even a Rocky star couldn't win